Stop! In The Name Of…Terrible Baby Names

As the wife and I (but mainly the wife) reach halftime of pregnancy #3, I thought an update might be in order. 20 weeks down, 20 more to go. Based on results from the first two matchups, I don’t expect this to go to overtime. There’s no doubt that Mommy showed up ready to play, but as the half wore on, she seemed to tire and even had to fight off a few bouts of nausea. The plan is to hydrate feverishly here at halftime and throughout the second half in an attempt to negate the effects of the impending summer heat. It’ll be a grueling final 20 weeks, requiring stamina and endurance that I (a two-time marathoner) simply do not have. But my wife is strong. She’s been here before. So buckle up for an exciting second half!

(This extremely long basketball metaphor, which ran its course at least 45 words ago, was brought to you by “March Madness”, one of this sports fan’s favorite times of the year.)

Now back to reality. Jen and I just had our 20 week ultrasound last Thursday and the baby is shaping up nicely. 10 fingers, 10 toes, and all those other important things that my wife (a NICU nurse) was relieved to find were all normal. For those wondering the big question…no, we didn’t find out the sex of the baby. With our first pregnancy, we elected to go the surprise route and I thoroughly enjoyed that moment when I burst through the waiting rooms door to declare to our families, “It’s a girl!”

The second time around, we gave in to our curiosity and chose to find that our little Jakester was on the way. Now, with one of each, we’re going back to being surprised and so you, loyal reader, will just have to be patient like the rest of us. For those willing to stick it out with us, I’ll be providing a little fun along the way in the form of a “baby pool”. No, not the inflatable kind that my wife will likely spend most of the summer sitting in. I’m talking about the gambling kind. No money involved though, just a friendly guessing game in categories such as sex, date of delivery, time, length, weight, etc. I’ll post details and a link to the pool once I’ve set it up, probably by my next post.

While waiting until the actual birth is both nostalgic and exciting, it also poses a bit of a problem for us. Not knowing means we have to come up with a name for both a boy and a girl in order to be prepared for the little munchkin upon arrival. Why is this a problem, you ask? Because we can’t seem to agree on a girl’s name. If, upon delivery, we are graced with the presence of a tiny twig and berries, we are good to go. We’ve had a boy’s name picked out since Jake was born and no, I’m not going to tell you what it is. You’ll just have to wait on that as well.

With no clear-cut favorite in the girl category however, we’ve taken to books and websites in the hopes of finding something that jumps off the page. Believe me when I say we’ve found plenty that do that, just not for the reasons we hoped. Here are some of the best (or worst) possibilities.

You named me what!!!

Abina: Considering the name means “She was born on a Thursday”, we’re pretty pigeon-holed with this one.

America: Destined to be powerful, patriotic, bad with money, and likely unemployed. Hmm…we’ll consider this one a “maybe”.

La-a: This is one of my favorites, mainly because the punctuation found within it finally gets its time to shine. You’ve seen plenty of names with apostrophes, but rarely, if ever, are they pronounced. This name however, pronounced “La-dash-a”, gives a proper shout-out to a often-used but rarely respected punctuation mark.

&: I just made this one up because based on some of the names I’ve seen, it’s perfectly acceptable to do so. It will be written as the symbol “&”, but spoken as the word “Ampersand”. Take that Grammar Police!

Female: Here’s an example of the disturbing trend of parents naming their children after everyday words, occurrences, or inanimate objects, but changing the pronunciation to justify it as a name. In this case, the word female is pronounced “Feh-Mall-ee” and suddenly, instead of a basic noun, it’s a little girl on the swings at the playground. Other examples of this trend include:

N/A: Not Applicable? Really? This was found on a list of rarely used baby names. When I looked into what classified a name as “rarely used”, the website stated, “found on between 25 and 50 birth certificates in a given year.” Ok, so that means that the name N/A was found on at least 25 birth certificates! Found on the same list were:

Chevy: But not Ford, Saab, or Lexus. Weird.Cuba: Like the countryWednesday: Like the day of the weekAlaska: Like the stateVirgin: Like the…wait, what? Virgin? C’mon folks!Update: Freshly Pressed 3/29!! Thanks to all who have commented. Keep them coming, they’re great to read. I will be responding very shortly to as many as I possibly can. You guys are great and thanks for the feedback!

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1245 thoughts on “Stop! In The Name Of…Terrible Baby Names”

Hmm it looks like your site ate my first comment (it was
extremely long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I submitted and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog.
I too am an aspiring blog blogger but I’m still new to everything. Do you have any recommendations for novice blog writers? I’d
certainly appreciate it.

My niece, when pregnant, (so I couldn’t even laugh at her) told me if it was a girl she was thinking of naming her child “Beige”. Yep. A color. Not even a snazzy color like Magenta, or Shocking Yellow, she liked the sound of “Beige”. I kind of stumbled over it, saying “Uh, Beige? Like, you know, skin tone?” To which she enthusiastically answered “Yes! That’s it!” ~ Thank GOD she had a boy. Named him a perfectly reasonable manly name not resembling any color or body part or anything.

Funny stuff. My wife and I just had our 20 week ultrasound last week, and we just couldn’t wait to know the gender. I admire your perseverance or patience or whatever it is:-). Thanks for the laughs. Someday I ‘ll have to write on some of the craziest names I’ve heard in China. Names like, Seven.

My friend in high school is named “I Am”. Yes, at first I couldn’t believe that it’s her name because her family name is “Suerte” or when translated in English her family name is “Lucky” therefore her complete name when translated in English, is I Am Lucky. That’s really cool because all of our classmates think that she indeed was lucky. She won many contests and became a part of the student government though she was new at school. But yeah, I guess, hers was a cool name. On the other hand, we named my nephew “Arclovin” supposedly Arch Lovin. Everyone also thinks that it is unique. Of course it is because we changed the spelling from ARCH to arc and then added the last two letters from his grandfather’s name ( ‘lo) and the last 3 letters of his father’s name.

name is the foundation of a baby’s sexuality.. as he grows up, his friends might call him a lot of pseudo names however if the name he has sounds nice and very meaningful, it somehow boost his self-confidence..congratulation anyway for the new member of your family..

My brother is an anesthesiologist in downtown Detroit and attends many births. He has regaled our family with crazy baby name stories for years. My personal fave? “ABCDE” all caps. Pronounced “AB-cee-dee”. Why do parents curse their children (and school teachers) like that?!? Great post! Congrats

Oh in addition i have a 7 month old son and i wanted to name him: “GSP3000” Short for George Saint Pierre (the UFC fighter) with a number in the name (like Andre 3000). To me thats original but unfortunately my wife wouldn’t have any part of it.

As me & wife waited for the delivery of surprise package from god about six years back, we were wishing for a girl and had finalized the name Meera (Origin: Sanskrit, Means “sea, ocean” in Sanskrit. This was the name of a 16th-century Indian princess who devoted her life to the God.)

We were calling the baby Meera in our conversations before the final day when god surprised us with a baby boy. We were a bit surprised but we promptly named him Kabir (The name Kabir comes from Arabic al-Kabīr which means ‘The Great’ – the 37th name of God in Islam. Kabir a 15th century north Indian mystic poet ranks among the world’s greatest poets. In India, he is perhaps the most quoted author)

Love the blog, takes me back to the the movie “Meet the Fockers” – can someone tell me what would persuade parents to name their son “Gaylord”, I actually know of a Mt Thaggard whose first name is Gaylord – I do hope he is not reading this.

you forgot lemonjello and cherryjello pronounced La-monj-ello and Sherryjello. and please don’t get me started on Anferny…the people who did not ask that woman if she meant ANTHONY should be fired from her position.

Haha! Loved this post! When I saw the title I immediately thought of Andre 3000 & Erika Badu’s child they so cleverly named “seven”. I feel bad for these children with those crazy kind of names. I know that I would certainly change mine if it was an inanimate object (Apple – Chris Martin) or color (blue – Beyonce & Jay-Z).
i’m just thankful my name is normal – Nicole. boring. plain & simple.

No one else remembers the Cagney and Lacey episode where the prostitute’s name was Female, also pronounced feh-mah-lee? IIRC, she got the name because mom was too stoned to care, so they left “female” on the birth certificate.

Meanwhile, the nearly infamous XKCD has another list of another less than desirable candidate names for a girl: http://xkcd.com/1011/

Some of the “unique” names are just insane, with more thought given to the parents’ desires than about the child. BUT. Sometimes unique names are very thoughtful. My girls are named Breathe (like you breathe oxygen) and Alight. I am a type A person, always trying to be perfect (no such thing, I know) and, for my first daughter, Breathe, I wanted something that would remind her that it’s okay to stop and just breathe, that you don’t have to be productive every moment of every day to be really “living.” Alight was the direct answer to a prayer, and I wanted something with the word “light” in it. The word “alight” means “to come down” (as in from heaven). The funny part is that I’ve never heard of either of their names before but they totally fit the girls’ personalities. Breathe, at 8, is very thoughtful: she writes stories. And Alight is just a ball of energy, she’s always smiling and laughing–she’s as bright a light as I can think of. Good luck! 🙂

Everybody has a logical reason (to them) for the name they chose–no matter how whacky it sounds to others. And a lot of people do just what you did: made your statement to the world through the names of your children.

And the children have to live with the consequences. My Dad made his statement (of love & respect to a dear relative) when he named me. Thankfully my quality of life improved so much after I changed my name at age 13. Sadly, his resistance to that idea led to a rift between us for about ten years.

“In the name of love”…if your daughter can’t stand the teasing anymore when they get to their teens, and want to change their names, please say YES.

Thank you! The most important ones, my girls themselves, love their names too. Alight enjoys telling others that she is a light, and Breathe, who is older, enjoys telling others that HER name has “meaning.” My name, common as it is, is spelled weird and, growing up, there was some teasing, even good naturally from teachers, but the difference always made me feel special, like I had something different, something that was just mine, from everyone else. I did not choose unique names for my girls to make my “statement”, I did it because I love them enough to teach them that they are special, and that they don’t have to conform to BE special. Thank you for the affirmation, glynis.🙂

Oh wow. Those are some pretty awful names. I’ve heard the names Summer and Autumn for a girl. At first I thought they were strange but now I think they’re pretty nice. But some names I don’t think will ever be nice.

When my fiance and I have kids, we’re very likely going to name them Amelia Pond and River Song (they’d better both be girls), because we’re huge geeks and love Doctor Who. Hopefully we won’t have a boy, because then we might have to name him Doctor or Stormageddon.

I’m thinking that “N/A” comes from parents that have not decided on a name yet and fill in the blank on the birth certificate with a N/A. I would like to think that they eventually end up as Johnny’s and Sarah’s. Hey, I can dream, right?

As a grammarphile, my greatest challenge with La-a is that, if you’re going to be technically correct it wouldn’t be pronounced Ladasha. It would be Lahyphena. Or if you absolutely had to go the dash route (which is incorrect if you’re using punctuation the right way) you would need to differentiate between the M dash and the N dash. So are you Lamdasha or Landasha.

I agree with previous comments, sometimes a bad name can be accidental. (hopefully my family and friends don’t read this)
My sons close friends twins Asama and Ben are 2 teens pretty happy that Osama bin Laden is dead and not in the news all the time
My brother’s middle names (we all have 2 each) “John Thomas” , after his grandfather and father respectively (john thomas is english slang for penis but my parents didn’t know that at the time)
I bet babies are now going to be named & and ~ after this post!

There are waaayyy too many crazy names out there! I have to say I went to high school with a girl named La-a and she was always very offended when you said her name wrong! I also went to school with twins named Orangejello and Lemonjello – what? Yes I did, they were a few years ahead of me! My aunt works at in hospital billing and she saw the name Asholay (pronounced Ash-lee) and my personal favortie, Shithead, pronounced shy-theed. WHHYYY!! Why do parents do this to their children?!

Well, if u want something patriotic, name her.. Usnavy… it is a pretty common name in some Central America`s county out of US-Navy don´t ask why! Or Disney… perhaps, also common around the other Americas… Mary Storm (Maria Tormenta)… Elymail (which just for the sound in Spanish would mean the-email)… and finally Primitiva (primitive)… Good luck finding a good name… the posibilities are wide and there is no point to draw the line it seems…

I like unusual names.
I also think it is a weird thing when people choose a name what sounds like a pet name like wuffi .it doesn’t give the a nicer name.It means that your chield will always, have to spell their name funny

I loved this post. I recently read the illegal baby names article several people referred to as well. I just can’t believe the names people come up with. A girlfriend of mine who does relief teaching once asked the students to write their names. One little girl wrote down ABCD. The teacher thought the girl had misunderstood the instruction and said “no sweetie, we are not doing the alphabet today. We are writing our names.”

“That is my name,” said the little girl.

The teacher reviewed the class register to find the girl was quite right. Apparenetly they pronounced it Ab-seh-dee.

Also, my mother has a friend called Wayne Kerr. Seriously… what were his parents thinking!

It’s not likely my wife and I will have any more kids, so I will not get to apply my favorite candidate name to a daughter, ever. You’re more than welcome to it, if you like it: Potus (for President of the United States).

Works for a boy as well, but I think when applied to a girl it has a bit more poignance.

As a person with an unpronounceable given name and a married woman with an unpronounceable surname, I applaud your decision making process. It costs quite a bit to have your name legally changed and I wish my parents could have taken a look into the future, seen my frustration, and just named me Ivy instead of Teicha. Of course through years of working in human resources, I have had plenty of people to commiserate with including Archangel, Babygirl and Intransista (she was born on a bus).

I think it’s funny that so many people with “unique” names seem to have gone into a profession where they come in contact with unique names all the time (teachers, DMV workers, HR folks). Thanks for the comment!

Okay, my niece is an OB/Gyn and one of her mothers named her baby Gonorrhea. Pronounced in Spanish it sounded so pretty to her, that she didn’t care what the silly meaning was in English. She insisted on naming her little girl Gonorrhea. Imagine when that one starts school!

If this is the same person a met, She was an African American lady in her twenties (about 10 years ago) and she pronounced her name as Gonora. I learned about the spelling through a co-worker. Obviously she kept the spelling as secret as possible. Who wouldn’t?
She also like to be called Jenny, and only when someone would ask her if it was short for Jennifer, she would say Gonora. Trying to avoid the spelling of her name. What stupid parents can make kids go through!!

My niece is an OB/Gyn and she had a mother who named her baby Gonorrhea. Pronounced in Spanish it sounded pretty, according to the mother. My niece told her what it meant in English, but she didn’t care. She named her little girl Gonorrhea. Imagine that on the first day of school!

Don’t forget to add Courvoisier, Cognac, Hennessey and Alize. Yup all alcohol! Some of these badly named children may be wise enough when they get old enough to do it to get a different name! The court may even do it for free! You can not give your child a name that not only they can not pronounce but no one else can either nor do you name your children after fruit. Most of these oddly named children are all going to school with each other say hey you no you what’s your name? Oh yeah Apple! The name America is part of the spanish culture of names and has nothing to do with our country being name the same. I asked. Now we really have to worry when children start being named after breakfast cereals. Wheatena, Trix, Shredded Wheat and Grits! lol

My 77 year old Mother’s first name is O’Deal; her sister was Viona. My grandmother got so much ribbing over those names that she named her next to children Bill and Mary. Everyone calls my mother “Deal.” And my aunt was called “Dutch” all her life. This generation does seem to be the worst, but other generations were creative, too. My mother named my siblings and I names out of the top 100.

I loooove the baby’s furious look hahahaha!
Reminds me of my own great time name hunting for my newborn – but seriously, I believe we should choose a meaningful name that we love (and think our child will love).
Superb post!
Blessings.

Took me about half an hour to scroll down to leave a comment, haha, congrats on being Freshly Pressed! Hilarious post! So true, and I’m sure you could find a child called & out there if you tried, considering all the ridiculous names out there.🙂 Abbie

Abigail is a pretty name isn’t it? I’ve found with a lot of people I know who are having kids that the naming-trend-pendulum is finally (not always, of course) beginning to swing the other way, and people are choosing old-fashioned names in order to be original. Plenty of Albert’s, Amelia’s, Isabella’s, Oliver’s and Archie’s going around. I also love the names Hazel, Rudi (girls) and Flynn for a boy. Good luck choosing!

La-a? Why not just spell it out- Ladasha? It actually looks pretty. I can just imagine roll call on the first day of school…
John?
Here!
Tara?
Here!
Bob?
Here!
Um… sorry… Law aw?
…
Lay-ay?
…
You mean La(dash)a, miss?
The poor kid would be tortured for the rest of her life.

I actually knew a girl named La-a. And my grandmothers patients were twins named Lemanjello and Orangejello (Le- man- zhello and Ar- an- zhello).
And I am friends with two girls named Ima and Yura… big deal? Well, their last names are Pigg (They’re full names are Ima Pigg and Yura Pigg… Sucks huh?)
I know a girl named Zina (what does it sound like?)
Try having the name Laureanna. Pronouced, Loretta with n’s instead of tt’s.
My friends call me MLA format (Emily format)
I know twins named Jamisha and Tamisha.
I know someone named Shonace. Pronounced Saen a Cee.
One of my best friends is Kia not as in the car, but Kae with an a at the end.
Darvin is a winner too.
My first friends name is Isemael. Pronounced Ish mail.
One of my pet peeves is when parents name their kids Delia and pronounce it Deal iah. It is pronounced Delie ah! I have known about like… 5 Delia’s and 4 of them pronounce it Delie ah, and the other one pronounces it Deal iah. It gets on my nerves… It’s Delie ah, Delia. End of story.
There’s this girl named Therese pronounced Theresa.
When did “Cogan” become a name?!
PARENTS!!! The names Logan and Riley are BOY names!!!!!!
Larken is a cute boy name… but they will meet mean kids in highschool… Please quit calling your kids Door. Doo ahr is not how bullies are going to pronounce their names.
Collin is a confusing name for kids with dislexia… Colin Collin…
Please quit naming girls “Mary Anne” “Mary Grace” “Mary Hannah” “Mary Lou” ITS SO CONFUSING!!!
LOL names gotta love ‘em!

I’m adding one to that; my colleague’s name is Floor. Now to us Dutch that’s a very common name; plenty of girls are named Floor here. But you can imagine what sort of responses she gets working in an international company with mostly English speaking employees.

Kind of means that we all have to make sure the name doesn’t sound like anything weird in any other language, right? Because you never know! Speaking about pressure… o.0

I found some more:
Brick (perfect for the baby whose skin is a beautiful bright red and as hard as a rock)
Da’Unique (trying to make the ever-unoriginal name Unique sound unique)
Cotton (fits the baby who is fluffy, white, and makes a good sweater)
Crazy (my favorite, an adjective name)
Kal-el (kahl-dash-ELLE)
M-L-Y (pronounced Emily)
And the best one…
Unwanted! (I wonder who named their kid that… the owner of a second-hand store?)

This kid name Shithead. (Pronounce Sha-Theid). Well my bf had to take him to the doctor after a soccer game. and the woman called him up like… “Sh- Sh- Shit head?” and his Mom stood up and said , “Oh no, girl! You KNOW his name Sha- theid!!!” It was so funny. So when ever we see him we stand up and snap our fingers and say “Oh no girl! You KNOW his name Shithead!” (Pronouncing it Sha theid)… xDDD Soooo funny…

I’m glad you wrote this; it gives parents a glimpse of the real world their child may face because some people ARE cruel.
Now, have mercy and quit doing that whenever you see the poor guy. You’d hate it –and feel very guilty– if you heard he’s committed suicide.

OMGoodness. My stomach hurts. Ampersand drove me over the wall. I get to see a lot of funny names at work, unfortunately most of them are clients … it’s really hard to keep from laughing sometimes. I have to excuse myself with a quick “please hold” until I can compose myself. There was a guy whose name was (God, forgive me for repeating this), Jack Rabbitt. I spent so much time laughing about his name that when I actually got to typing the cover letter for my mailing, I made the mistake of addressing it to Peter Rabbit. Thank goodness I caught it in time. He now goes by John, I wonder why? Did he not see the humor in his name earlier? What’s in a name? A whole heck of a lot! Good luck. My suggestion for your newest’s name is “Three” – at least it makes sense.

Awesomeness!😉
Seriously, this was a wonderful read. I could go on for days about the plethora of ludicrous names I’ve heard, or the stories I’ve heard from others about such names for children.
It should be considered child abuse, in my opinion.
I once heard of a woman naming her twin boys Orangejello and Lemonjello, pronounced Ah-rahn-zhel-o and Lah-mahn-zhel-o.
Also, I used to know a girl named Bronchita (think Bronchitis) and another in elementary school named Livore, pronounced like liver…
What is the world coming to?

I have a friend who works in a hospital where a set of twins were named Orangejello and Lemonjello. Can’t say I disagree about the child abuse thing. Everytime I run into an (IMO) unfortunate name I can’t help but declare I’d have changed my name.

I will not hesitate to confess that I did not read the entire article because when I saw the title of this entry, I knew exactly where this was headed.

All I can say is that it’s a good thing you’re not in Detroit. We name our kids (I don’t have any myself-doubt it if I ever will, either), but in the inner-city, we name our kids after cars we can’t afford (Porsche, Allante, etc.), the prefix is either la-, sha, de, da, tra, and HALF THESE @#$% NAMES I CAN’T EVEN SPELL!

Used to be a time you’d give a kid a Biblical name, or a name out of the Quran, or the Talmud or something. I just don’t get it sometimes.

No way! Mac’n’Cheese? How cruel are some parents!!! Good thing they are not Canadian or they would be called “Kraft Dinner”. It makes me sad – mean mean parents!!!

Someone above mentioned they feel it is abuse and I tend to agree! There is a HUGE difference between giving your kid a name that is unique and giving them a name that is ridiculous!!!

I have heard of a few people called Precious the 2 I have met were not nice people, a princess in the bad sense of the word is an understatement. But I am sure there are many people with that name that are lovely. Funny how our experiences jade us against certain names!

Oh, I’ve got an incredible number of stories I could tell about names; food names especially. I like unique names, but my rule is that it shouldn’t get the kid bullied or laughed out of a job interview.

I don’t object to the name Precious, per se, I just object to combining it with a second name that sounds like it belongs to an exotic dancer. The two names were her actual first name.

What a great blog and what a great find through the power of your WordPress popularity. I agree that the endless stream of foolish kid names seems to have no end. And while you certainly have cornered the market on the really absurd, there is an endless supply of crimes-against-humanity kid names that are masquerading as real names… Sisters named Coraline and Emmaline, Brothers named Brick, Buck and Rudd… We have been blatantly anti-theme name in our family. No flowers, herbs, grandma names, or the like.

Kudos on Jake… now he gets to form an identity for himself other than that which his name traps him in.

thats the things with names, what is funny once can become really ‘in’ later….remember in the series sienfeld; George castanza wanted to name his daughter seven ….now david beckham’s daughter is called seven !!🙂 congrats on freshly pressed.

I thank my folks for gifting me with a normal sounding name that matches well with my surname. That being said, where I’m from (the Philippines), most people refer to you by your nickname. Common nicknames here are “Boy”, “Baby”, “Girlie”, etc. In my family, I find it ridiculous to call my “Uncle Boy” and my “Aunt Baby”. Or how about “Grandma Girlie”. Ugh.

I also know a family that named their kids Prince, Duke, Princess, Queenie and Duchess. However as adults, they’ve ALL opted to use other non-related names instead haha.

1000th blogger to “like” this post…you’re welcome haha. loved this.
I recently read this article about baby names that have been banned in various countries around the world, very funny, bizarre, disturbing and quirky all at once…ENJOY!!

I skipped! I was about 10% down the list, and enjoyed the comments as much as your post😀 I happen to like Linnea (spelled classic way) and of course Mika. You know where I’m coming from, hih. In Finland you don’t have to name your baby until the child is 2 months old. That’s good, because sometimes the actual baby does not LOOK like the name you picked. So have a couple of names available😀 It makes it harder if your family has mixed background, like we European/American. Names have to be easy in both homelands. We made OK, and actually found that their names translate also into Japanese as Land and Apricot! Funny post and it seems to have hit the spot!

I met a little girl once who spelled her name for me. This is exactly what she told me: “K… No. Capital K, dash, capital L, A.”
“Kayla” spelled “K-La”? Took me by surprise, and I definitely have never forgotten it!

My son is called Roarke. I found the name in the “in death” series of books by J.D. Robb and it’s the only one me and hubby could agree on! You’d be surprised by the different spellings and pronunciations we get!
It’s said as “roar-ke” but we mainly get “roke” which has been a spelling of it once as well!

Having a strange name myself I am very heartened to see this especially since I work in the medical field and frequently have to call patients that I absolutely have no idea how to pronounce there name!!! My name is Anneke… it rhymes with Hanukkah(as in the Jewish holiday), It is actually becoming more and more popular(or so I hear). I have been called a few strange things, including areola(random drunk guy couldn’t remember my name…probably a joke), Annameka (Elderly person who liked watching The Lawrence Welk show with a performer of Spanish descent with this name). The worst thing I have experienced with my name however was when I spent a year in an Arabic speaking country and later found out that if my name was pronounce VERY slightly differently… as in ah-nee-kuh it actually means— I want to F*%# you… I did not find this out until a year or two after having visited there it. Great post!!! Congrats on FP, and Blessing for your family and new addition.

I know a teacher who had a La-a in her class! On the first day of school, she was calling role, and came to La-a and didn’t have a clue how to pronounce it. The little girl was quick to correct her by saying “It’s LA-DASH-A. The dash is NOT silent”. Poor thing will have to do that for the rest of her life…. absolutely not fair.
Thought you might also enjoy these little gems:

My husband and I are having our second child. I’m 25 weeks along. We’re having a girl and decided to name her Zoe. Short and sweet like our son’s name, Erik. If you’re looking for unique names how about mine? Elke (L-Key).

I didn’t like it that much growing up, because I was the only one, but I love it!

Oh, do not even get me started. I’m a mother-baby nurse, and I keep a list of truly insane names that have been bestowed upon some of our little bundles of joy. I’ve discussed the idea of a “Name Consult” with severael pediatricians, all of whom support the idea of such an intervention: if a nurse identifies a parent who wants to name her child something like “Shuglister” (yes, it’s on my list), she may request that the pediatrician step in and say something like, “Your child is just perfect, and we’ll be happy to seem him or her in clinic next week. But I’m afraid we just can’t permit you to give him or her that name. Here are some acceptable alternatives.”

This post had me in hysterics! Well done! I’m pregnant with my first right now and for some reason we can’t come up with any girls names we agree on either. There are some really crazy names out there. Maybe we’ll go with ‘&’… that one made me laugh pretty hard.

We’re currently in the same situation, 27 weeks pregnant with our first. As a teacher I have a list of ‘absolutely NOs’, generally naughty children who I’ve taught over the years and think I would find myself thinking of them as I yelled my child’s name! Still, we’ve got a while left to make some decisions!
Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed!

After putting up with having an unusual name myself that no-one could or can pronounce or spell correctly I went for what I thought were super-conservative, easy, perennial names for my children… all four of them. Unbelievably some people still spelt them wrong, and 2 of them turned out to be so common in their school year it was ridiculous, while the other 2 suffered the same fate as myself, as I’m sure my super-conservative parents didn’t realise they were naming me anything strange or unusual at the time, but then I grew up in a different time and place… So probably going for an old fashioned name will turn out to be unusual stand-out by the time your little one gets to school! All you can do is try to be kind – and don’t forget to check what the initials make.

When I was learning to talk I could not pronounce the name my parents chose so I started saying something simpler. My mother then started calling me that and as far as I’m concerned it has always been my name. When I was at school they referred to me by my christened name but I found it weird and never related to it. When naming my own kids, I made sure they had pronounceable names and also a middle name which was sufficiently different in case they really didn’t like their first one.

FYI, in Australian indigenous culture, if someone dies, for a long time you should not say their name (or view pics of them) – the deceased is just referred to by a special word (eg. Kumantye). If you happen to have the same name as the deceased you are also then called Kumantye. Sadly because indigenous people have short life expectancy there are always community members dying. So their babies these days tend to get quite unique names. But nothing like any of the ones you mention!

No matter how many times I see a picture of an angry baby face I laugh hysterically. Angry babies are awesome (at this point it must be apparent to any and all parents that I do not have any children).

Really Saab or Virgin. What is the would coming too. Changing the pronunciation is just stupid. Sorry but it is. What do you think people are going to call the kid. Kid to kid the teasing will be out of control. The child will not want to give their name out when meeting new kids. Can you imagine roll call on the first day of school times K-12 too include Pre-k in many places. I don’t want to hurt any feelings but think about the child as if it they were more than a hand bag.

Anyone can and will mangle a name, no matter how simple you believe it to be. My name is Julie and yet you would be surprised to hear how many times it became ‘July’ in spelling or pronunciation.

I came from a big family of “normal” names: Melinda, Joel, Michael (Mike), Larry, Dale, James (Jim) Traci, Lee, Julie… the only “unusual” one was Jacqueline Suzanne (who was named after the author) and was called Jackie Sue. But almost all of us has ended up with unusual sounding names for our kids… although not TOO unusual.

My son’s name is Streeter as I wanted an unusual name that was easy to pronounce and to spell. It still gets mangled because people don’t actually believe it is a first name. It’s often replaced with Steven. Since his birth, though, we’ve met (online) three other Streeters, so it’s not the only one.

My mom would always caution us kids when naming to stand at the back door and yell the name as loud as we could. She said we would be doing that for the next 18 years, so it better sound good!

Nice list there! I think I’ve heard of more people named after States. I know of one named Florida. I also know that Wednesday is the name of the Adams family kid. I would love to meet someone named Mortisha! As for the N/A, maybe that’s not the actual baby’s name. Maybe the parents haven’t yet agreed on the name of the baby at the time of his/her birth, and those birth certificates were amended once the parents came to an agreement. Also, I know that religious Jewish parents don’t reveal the name of their baby boy until his bris (when the baby is eight days old)…

amusing post. i like your basketball metaphor even though i’m not a huge sports fan. best of luck picking a name for #3. at this point “#3” is appropriate since you’ll inevitably call him/her by your other two children’s names anyway–it’s inevitable.

Naming disasters sometimes aren’t the parents’ fault. The expression dickhead is fairly recent, and rather embarrassing for the Richard Heads given that name: and my fishmonger, Mr Potter, prefers to be known as Henry now.

My wife is a Native American from Colombia, which, as a country, at the time she gave me twins, was up the proverbial creek without the paddle (you get bored with the cocaine jokes after a while), so we chose a name for one of them which was NA, but not Colombian – Tonantzín, which is variously translated as Our Gracious Lady, Mother Goddess, or simply Mary. It’s Mexican. How would we know the drugs trade would move north?

We always said she could change when she got older (teenage girls almost always customise their names anyway), or abbreviate it to Tona. She has abbreviated it, as has her sister, Christine. They are ‘Tine and ‘Tzín. We should have seen that one coming.

I have a collection of business cards from the days when I used to travel all round the world. They include Rich Chocolate (Chuculate is a Cherokee name), Young Bum Lee (Korean) and Xavier Yngvi Zetterstrom (Swedish) – initials XYZ.

Hardest to keep a straight face: being greeted at Athens Airport – “Hello! Welcome to Greece! I am Sophocles.”

We had a young Zulu guy just out of school who worked in our garden a couple of times a month. He used his English name, which was Praise God. Once when we couldn’t find him we ended up calling out,”Praise God! Praise God!” What the neighbours thought about our religious fervour, I don’t know.

I live in Spain and the traditional(!) names they have here include: Angel, Fanny, Inmaculada Concepción (yes, as in Immaculate Conception), Esther (pronounced Es-stair), Dolores (pains), Felicísimo (very happy), Iluminada (illuminated).. I could go on! And these are traditional names… Just imagine what the “unique” ones are like… By the way, my name is Tia (means “princess” in Greek and “aunty” in Spanish) Kezia (which means “good thing after bad times”, one of Job´s daughters).. As you can imagine, here in Spain I go by the name Kezia🙂

So, I’m just now finishing my night shift in postpartum where we hear tons of names, but when I read these I was laughing so hard I was crying! Here I was sitting by myself at my computer totally cracking up! A co-worker caught me…it was so embarrassing! I don’t know if these are true or not, but this post was hilarious!!!

Eh, that picture isn’t your baby right? I think I have seen that somewhere in videos. But your baby might shown that kind of expression if given a name that people will make a laughing stock out of it.

The craziest name I’ve seen in a book is Abcde (pronounced Ab-si-dee) and Humvee, as in the the Army vehicle. On a real little girl I had students named Desire Romance and Destinknee (supposed to be Desitny/Destinee)

I keep thinking how hard it is going to be for kids to learn to spell their name when they get to school… A friend of mine named her child Indiana which would be nice except she spelt it Indiyannah. Poor kid. I’d feel so ripped off if that was my name and the child sitting next to me was Joe or Sam etc.🙂
Great post, congrats on FP. I only clicked through because of the photo. It’s a classic.

My Arabic name is Hanan. The H isn’t quite like the Engilsh h, it’s a breathy sound deep down in the throat. When chatting on the internet using a Latin keyboard, Arabs represent unique sounds in Arabic with numbers.

So you see people named 3del (pronounced ‘aaa-dil”), “5alid” (pronounced khaa-lid) etc.

I think the internet chat language kind of got into my head and I actually started thinking of my name as “7anan” and when asked to spell it, I say 7-a-n-a-n…

Love the baby so much :)) “You name me whaaat!!” Probably I will yell to my parents too if I understand when I was a baby.. they name me exactly the same with the name of the hospital where I was born.. LOL

I am so glad someone brought La-a (Ladasha) to the attention of the masses! I heard this name for the first time about a year ago, and wanted to jump through my radio to slap the person who thought this name was a good legacy to gift to their unborn child. That said, if you or your wife succumb to some sort of brain aneurism and name your child La-a, I will crawl through my computer screen to protest.

An awful name I heard a woman call her little son is Coirvoisier (“Kwa-voss-ee-air'”). However she spells it, he’ll have a hard time learning it!

African-Americans where I live in GA must not know Spanish, because of the boys’ contracted names that start with La (feminine) instead of Le (masculine), like in LaJerrick. And most have apostrophes somewhere in the girls’ names, like D’janniqua.

You can kind of tell the (probably redneck) white peoples’ sons names such as Colton, Holden, River, Hunter, Blade, Cade – like they’ll all be outdoorsmen when they grow up.

What gets me is the girls with formerly boys’ names: Rilee, RyLee, Harley, Rivers, Sloan, etc. Can’t tell if a boy or girl anymore by the names.

The Junior of a Junior having the last name sometimes gets named Trey, being the 3rd.

My daughter’s middle name is Almarie, a contraction of family names. Now she just goes by Marie, which she chose herself.

Best wishes on the “2nd half”, and for having a healthy baby with a nice name!

Gosh, I knew there were some ridiculous names out there, but nothing like the ones you just shared with us. Geez! I like the idea of giving my children unique names, but nothing like those.

I think it’s funny that boy names are easier than girl’s names for you and your wife. I have plenty of popular boy’s names that I like, but unique ones aren’t as easy for me to come up with as the ones I like for girls.

Congrats, by the way!! I hope the summer is more pleasant for momma than expected.🙂

A friend of mine once saw this little girl running up and down a place where you were supposed to just sit down and be quiet. She thought the girl looked happy, but it was clear that she was disturbing the other people there. This went on for a while, and people started getting really annoyed. After a few more minutes of running an angry woman stood up and said, “Disneyland, sit down right now!” No one was able to keep a straight face after that.

My little girl was born on August 19th last year; we proudly made it through one of the hottest summers on record here in KC while I was the size of a small boat. My husband and son survived, although they were a bit chilly . . . evidently, 60* is cold for most folks? Not for hugely pregnant ladies, let me tell you what!! Suffice to say: congrats on the pregnancy, and save up for the electric bills! (And the kiddie pool is good, too–I sat on our deck with my feet in a tub of ice-cold water and Peanut’s Elmo spray-toy misting on the few days we waddled out so he could splash in his water table–it made it bearable.)

I don’t know why people think they can’t use names that other people have. We don’t need to be constantly inventing names or borrowing fictional characters. All the Bellas and Edwards named after young adult vampire trash drive me nuts. Great post and congrats on the FP! I was on a week ago and it was CRAZY! Enjoy it😉

Reblogged this on Hot chocolate and books and commented:
There are names out of this world and I pity the poor kids, it gives them one more reason not to like their parents and the bullying they’ll face at school make me want to cry along with ’em. Awesome post though, it made my day😀

Nurse on the ICU neonates ward said they had parents called a little girl Tia…middle name Maria..a coffee liqueur that translates as Aunty Maria…Zowie Bowie, son of David doesn’t use his original first name I heard.

My favourites came from Geologist collegues of my husband who was working in Botswana when I was pregnant…Cabbage is used, as are Polite, Comfort,Tallboy and even Toolboy!

With regard to Grey-anne, the name “Grainne” is Irish and it is pronounced “Grah-nye” and I think it is beautiful, We considered that name for both of my girls, but ended up with “Erin-Claire” and “Micaela”. My vote for me second daughter was “Aine Rosoin ” (Irish, pronunciation “Anya-Rosheen)” and we would call her Annie Rose in English.

However, I was outvoted by my husband and oldest daughter, so Micaela Elizabeth it is.

My aunt was named America. We called her Merky, or Murky. You could nickname your little America, Mer -ee-ka (phonetics). Sound a lot less shady that Murky. I never did know how to spell that nickname. Good luck with the name search.

You’re not going to believe this, but I was hitchhiking out of Oklahoma and this guy picked me up (that’s not the unbelievable part). He was kind of an artsy-fartsy type–I think he did graphic design or something. He eventually drove me all the way to Kansas City.

Anyway, we were talking and he casually said that he named his two kids Bam Bam and Pebbles. Of course, I thought he was joking and, just as I started to laugh, I looked at him and HE WAS DEAD SERIOUS! He really named his two kids Bam Bam and Pebbles! Man, I couldn’t believe it!

The first thing I wanted to say was, “Do you hate your kids that much?!” But I didn’t say anything since he was the one giving me a ride. I probably nodded my head like it was no big deal because naming your kids “Bam Bam” and “Pebbles” is just like naming your kids “John” and “Sally”, right?

Thanks for the laughs. Love the basketball metaphor and the photo! I’m the mom to twins and some of the naming combos parents with twins come up with drive me nuts as well. I opted for simple and easy to spell!

Very beautiful story and a great photograph to go along with it / that baby is amazing. Yes I did what you did sort of.. after haveing a boy and a girl.. we decided to find out on the third the sex.. just so I knew what to keep and what to get rid of! PURELY THAT.. and the names, I named my daughter Montana.. its a little out there but at almost 16 she loves her name.. her friends love her name and its been a success.. but if i had listened to the grandparents we would have a Margaret or a Tania but not a Montana… the best of luck with all of it especially the last 2o weeks! WELL DONE.. from a 3 x marathoner!! lo;

Remember the Seinfeld episode when George came up with the name Seven and one of his friends named his son that? Congrats on the new addition and on becoming Freshly Pressed. Remember a name can have everything to do how a person’s life turns out…so choose wisely! Nice post! 😉.

A unisex option would be to make the name just the upside down lowercase “e” and call the baby “schwa.” Or if you didn’t want to pronounce it phoenically, you could just make the schwa sound as the baby’s name. Like . . . “uh.”

Someone has probably already said this, but the “LinnA(c)a” is clearly a case of a computer incorrectly reading a Swedish letter, in this case probably the “ae” symbol.

It’s generally anglicized to “Linnea” and pronounced, “Linn-A-ah” (that’s a hard “A” like in “cake”, then a soft “A” like in “father”). It’s the name of a Swedish flower, which was named after Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, who invented modern bionomial nomenclature (basically, all the latin names for plants and animals).

My husband and I could not agree on a girl’s name to save our lives! And when we finally found one that didn’t make either one of us barf, a random, and fairly irritating, family friend suggested it to us with this proud look of triumph that made us certain that we could NEVER go with our one neutral moniker and have this person think for eternity that she had chosen our daughter’s name. Luckily we ended up with two boys.
My grandmother, who worked in an administrative office in a hospital on Long Island, claimed that many non-English speaking patients who had trouble filling out their forms would go home with birth certificates listing only the child’s sex (Female, Male) in the space for the child’s name. She claimed that many of these people thought that the hospital had assigned their child a name, hence the popularity of “Fee-mah-lay” and “Mah-lay” among the children of Spanish speaking immigrants on Long Island. No idea if this is true. But it is an interesting story.
Thanks for your post. Hope you find a girl’s name that works for you, unless of course you don’t end up needing one.

Oh my gosh- hilarity. Thanks for sharing, and what they heck! I have met a few people throughout my life who I just felt sorry for because they had such peculiar names- one was even named something that sounded similar to “genitalia” because her parents thought it sounded cool. Often, I just wonder what drugs the parents are on.

The name is Linnea. It means lime tree and it is a popular name in Sweden. It was taken from the last name of Carl Linnaeus, the father or taxonomy and binomial nomenclature. It was me ex’s name and it is quite beautiful off the lips and received quite a number of compliments while I was with her. I do not know your source, but I would suggest not paying it attention or staying away from websites that look like they were typed via computer mashing.

In Britain there was a father who named his child after all eleven players of the Chelsea football team. This wouldn’t have been so bad but the child was a girl…

The mother went to the High Court to get her child’s name changed and it’s the only time in Britain that someone has had their name changed on their birth certificate. Here once the birth certificate has been issued, that’s it and you can’t change it, but they made an exception for this girl.

As a teacher, I want to remind all parents thinking of names for their new little ones that schools have to use the child’s official name – the one on the birth certificate – on all attendance and test documents and at graduations. So please save your child that horrible first day of school when the teacher reads THAT name to the class and establishes the child’s identity with his/her peers forever after. An unusual name or one that is hard to pronounce can destroy a child’s confidence. I know because my maiden name was always mispronounced as Boozer to gales of laughter especially at graducations. So choose wisely please.

I’ll keep mine short and sweet; I applaud you for thinking of your child in all of this and as someone who has processed birth certificates for a living for the past several years, you can imagine some of the “unique” doozies I’ve seen. I can’t post them here but there have been some that will shock and surprise you. The names you listed were very mild in comparison.

I’ll leave you with this little gem: “Champ.” I SO wish I could tell you the baby’s last name but it’s…unfortunate, to say the least. It isn’t bad enough your kid is saddled with a ridiculous surname by default. You named this sweet little guy, “CHAMP?” *le sigh*

You wouldn’t believe how crazy it gets. I clicked on this post because I recently read another one about laws against certain baby names in other countries. Some countries actually have a list you have to pick off of. There have been some nutso names turned down. My personal fave?
“Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116″ (pronounced “Albin”).

I actually took the plunge on unique names for my son and named him Link after the Legend of Zelda hero. We decided to forego the middle name since it didn’t seem like he’d run into to many people with his name. And most people love it.

I’m completely in love with the name ‘Alaska’ myself. Got it from the book ‘Looking for Alaska’ by John Green, that I read a couple of years ago, when I was a foreign exchange student in the States.
Unfortunately, the pronunciation is eve more bizarre in my native tounge, danish, which is probably going to make it even harder to talk a guy into naming our baby that!

Well, I had a schoolmate in high school named L-Ladea (pronounced El-La-Deya)!🙂 But I wasn’t surprised when you mentioned Wednesday. Remember Wednesday Adams? And I know someone whose name is June Nine Wednesday, she’s actually in college already and she’s really quite an achiever! So many weird names especially here in our country. By the way, I’m April Grace but my nickname’s Apple!🙂

Wow you certainly have allot of comments…. some freaky names there, maybe you should go with something slightly less abnormal, and none with a copyright sign in them!!!!!!! Well done and happy naming!!

How about the women who give birth in our hospitals unable to speak english? I’ve heard of mothers naming their children after words they heard frequently while in the hospital. A friend of mine had a boy come to her camp whose mother had named him “Nonsmoking” with emphasis on the first syllable. Also a little girl named “Vagina” What are people thinking?

Great post!
The others to avoid are names that have clear meaning. the Joys I have met have all been miserable, the Graces all clumsy, Charity was was not giving and sadly the little Princess was a snotty nosed little tramp!!
Best of luck with your new arrival!

Ha ha, that’s hilarious! I like Ampersand as a name, though – but I’d write it all out😉
I satisfy my hunger for weird names by giving them to my characters (who have to live with things like Fyodor Rimiinsky, Hettie Jaelin, and Nim), but I still harbour a wish to name a son ‘Ianto’. By the time I’m old enough to have children, though, I expect I’ll have grown out of that… maybe.

So I work in child support and you can imagine that I see a whole slew of ridiculousness day in and day out. Keeping in the spirit of your post, here are a few of my faces: Bre-nda (Bray-nuh-duh? Still not sure); Twins, Orange Jello and Lemon Jello (Or-ahn-juh-low and Leh-mon-juh-low); Zxerquasha (Zer-quash-uhh?); La’Xtretic (???).

MY wife, A first grade teacher in the Bronx, has had kids named Yohinus (Like street version of “Your higness”), Asshole (Pronounced ash-o-lay), Yomajesty (Yohinas’ brother, I shit you not), and yes, she had a female too, but also the brother “male”, and my favorite, the twins from a few years ago Sharrin and not-sharrin. I am not witty enough to be making any of this up. These were all official names. Wow…
ArrogantSOB
arrogant-sob.com

Think your blog is great! I’m new to wordpress, started my blog yesterday. How do you get on Freshly pressed?

I’m 30 weeks Prego with twin girls (and already have one girl), so we now have two more girl names to find! I will bear your post in mind when making a decision. Another crazy name we came across in the name book is “Conception” – I think that deserves to go on the cruel list too! xx

we are due with baby boy #2 in 16 weeks. having a hard time deciding on a name. our first boy is Mika (pronounced MeeKah – it’s Finnish for Michael). he gets called Micah a lot. a couple girl names we liked are Anya and Sienna.
people I know with odd names:: Will Power (he’s a driver in the Indy Car series) and Justin Case (a guy I went to high school with). my own name is a bit different – Ardele (kind of like the British singer Adele, but I had my name first). and my mom’s name is Dorita. she had her name before Doritos were invented.

An inexplicably popular girls’ name in the Appalachian region is “Nevaeh,” pronounced “Nuh-VAY-uh,” after which, the beaming-with-pride parent rapidly explains, “It’s heaven spelled backwards.” Which prompted me to come up with “Lleh,” pronunced, “Luh” after which I would explain, well, the obvious.

I actually like Wednesday!😛 I could never use it for my own child (my kids are Donovan and Cordelia). But, I have a space in my heart for the Addams family I guess!

I give you guys props for having another surprise baby. I’ve always wanted that feeling of surprise, but at the same time, I am not sure I could fully bond with the baby in utero if I couldn’t call him/her by his/her name. Both of my children were named before or shortly after finding out the gender. Now that I have one of each though, it would be pretty neat to keep it a surprise! We’ll see, I have a few years before #3.

and I about died on Virgin. really?! I could never use Virginia which is completely legit, because of it having Virgin in it… People are crazy.

Naming is a difficult task …..especially nowadays when people travel around the world a lot. If you think your child will ever live in , or even vistit Sweden, PLEASE dont name it Pitt or Pippa …..
But here in Sweden Linnea ( pronounced lean-e-a) is considered as a beautiful name and therfore quite common for women of all ages. It is also the name of a small lovley flower named after the Swedish ” flower king” Carl von Linné , a botanist who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature.

I grew up as The White Car “Dwight Karr” “hey the white car, where’s your brother the blue car” is your name Dwight Karr or Duh white Karr? What’s you middle name? My middle name is my Mothers maiden name Dir. So you’re the white Dirrrty car the dirty white car.
But it’s ok I been to counciling and I run a support group ha ha
Thanks for the fun article

I forgot to say too, that I actually know of a “Female”, pronounced as you wrote it, who was around in our elementary school about a decade ago. Sadly, in her case, she was named it because her mother wasn’t too bright and she thought that the nurses named her baby for her when they wrote “female” on her bed tag. So sad…

I often see the case of people giving such a names to their babies which sound sweet, mainly because the baby looks sweet at the time. It often happens that the name becomes much comical as the person grows older and becomes “more serious”.

i am 21 and my husband and i have been married almost a year, but we have been together for almost 4. we started thinking about baby names from the beginning, even though we are *planning* on waiting a few more years. he wants a little girl really badly and picked out the name Emmery Elaine Palmer. haven’t decided on a boy’s name yet, but i want a boy to play football with as my husband and i are HUGEEE football fans, (myself for the Packers and him the Dolphins).

This is a great post! It incorporates all the things roaming around in my household at the moment: a household full of boys (yes, that includes the hubby), March Madness, baby number 3 on the way (yes, another boy), and what to name him. I’ve had a favorite from the beginning but my husband was insistent on making me suffer with his indifference to that name until about two weeks ago when he finally called our little pea in the pod by the name I’ve been dreaming of, subliminally programming into my husband’s head for months now.

But I absolutely love this post about baby names. It really is exhausting (the pregnancy and trying to select a name). Here’s to a great name for that sweet boy or girl on the way… I can’t wait to read about how this all plays out. In the meantime, I’ll be watching the final four with my favorite guys and cheering on our Buckeyes. Good luck to whatever team you’re cheering on and best of luck to you and your wife on getting your kid named.

To extend your metaphor a bit more, you still have a whole other half to go. Take a few timeouts and it will come to you. Best of luck!

if I err not, singer Marty Robbins’ wife was Marizona. (Or Merizona?)
But you really shouldn’t have mentioned New Hampshire — now someone will think that ‘s the way to go–or West Virginia.
Bear in mind that in twenty years the States may be at war with Panama or Peru and the poor guy/gal would be hauled in for frequent questionings because of “obvious undesirable allegiance.” Or there may be devastating riots / earthquakes in New Hampshire. The poor kid would be announced as “Here comes the Rebel / Shaker!”

Congratulations on being freshly pressed! I just posted – without having read yours – a very tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the names in the BBC Shipping Forecast would make great kids’ names. Actually, Shannon is fairly common – but look at the rest of them. Now I’m thinking the idea isn’t so farfetched after all!

I recently found out that barrack obama’s chief aide is call Randy Bumgardner. In the uk randy means horny and bum means your backside. So it would be like an American being called Horny Arselandscaper.

Love reading this blog =) As I am 10 weeks with my first child my husband and I are trying to think of baby names for both girls and boys. Not having much luck with girls names though haha. Hope your wife and baby are doing well. Can’t wait to read about what comes next. Be Safe……

My mom is a teacher, and she’s shared some great/terrible names over the years. The most memorable are Lion (nope, not Leon or Liam, pronounced like the animal), Aquanetta (like the hairspray), and a girl whose last name was Fukalotta.

Jesus said “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things; and evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil things.” You can cite all the scripture in the world, from Paul or from Genesis or Psalms, from the book of Mormon or the Koran or the Zen Avestas or some Buddhist books, the so-called Gospel of Thomas, Manichean scriptures, whatever you want, to allege that everyone is born evil. But you will always have that saying of Jesus standing in your way. As for the evil who out of the evil treasure of their heart bring forth evil things, certainly Calvinists who relish nothing more than condemning babies to hell fit that bill.

The two worst I’ve heard about:
* ‘Tar-Ian’, pronounced ‘tar-dash-ian’. Yikes.
* ‘Rogan Josh’, because the mother saw it written down once and thought it sounded nice. Little did she know she’d seen it on an Indian takeaway menu…

This post is so deserving of a Freshly Pressed status, nicely done! As a mom of a 7-month-old baby boy, I remember going through that whole process, except it was the boy name that my husband and I couldn’t agree on. This was hilarious! Best of luck with finally settling on a name, and of course blessings to you and your wife on the remainder of the pregnancy and the birth of your sweet baby #3!

When pregnant I was quite interested in new mothers. Standing in the queue at Starbucks one morning I asked the lady in front of what she had called her new baby.
Mother: “Jezebel, it’s a Bibilical name.”
Me astonished, “Yes, and are you going to call her Jessie?”
Mother: “No, just Jezebel.”
Me curious: “Do you know who Jezebel was in the Bible?”
My husband started trying to forcible remove me from the store around now knowing where this was going.
Me loudly as I was propelled out the door: “She was the whore of Babylon!”
I still maintain I did her a favour.

I know these kids all personally and I go back and forth on whether I like their names or not – 1) Lyden, 2) Gryphon, 3) Lyric – today I like Lyric best of the three. And I love Rylen though my ex-husband vetoed it when I was pregnant. I have two girls – Montanna and Brianna…..taken as individuals it’s fine, but when we introduce them together it’s actually fairly cheesy….and to be honest I didn’t even realize it until my youngest was about 2….mommy blinders….that’s my excuse…

I am a teacher in and inner city district, and three years ago we had an assembly for Honors and perfect attendance. The pre-school class came up and our principal announced, “And the award for PERFECT attendance goes to….. APPLEBOTTOM!!”…… of course this is when the infamous radio song was a hit and I leaned over to my coworker and said, “Let me guess… her brother’s name is ‘Boots wit da Fur’?”

And the la-a, I have heard of this before. Working in inner city has really opened my eyes.

This article was flipping hilarious!! I literally had to laugh out loud. La-a????? &??????????? REALLY???? They are all really bad jokes and possibly the single most important reason why mothers shouldn’t be allowed to name their newborns until the epidural wears off.

Getting in on Freshly Pressed is really awesome! Spent an hour reading through the comments alone! Nice!

Congratulations on your third baby! Like someone said earlier, yes, 10 fingers and 10 toes is VERY important. Hopefully, the baby also has all body parts complete.😀

I pity the people who got played with their names, which leads me to my contributions. In my country, I’ve heard of brothers who got named “King,” “General,” and “Attorney.” Imagine the teacher in their class shouting out names for attendance… King (insert last name here)… Present! General (insert last name here)… Present! Attorney (insert last name here)… present… ok. That’s just plain funny (I would dare say terrible though since the kids MIGHT just enjoy the attention).

Congrats on being freshly pressed and baby number three. I have seen some CRAZY names for babies. The most recent? And you won’t believe this, and I wouldn’t either if I didn’t see it. But the baby was named Placenta……yes….and after the actual placenta she was born from. Nice huh? I am really surprised though it wasn’t written P’lacenta. Would have been more modern in my opinion.

Choosing baby names is such a challenge! We were like you and had a girls name picked out from the first day, (Savannah Rose) but along came Max John, took forever to come up with a boys name we could both agree on.
My mum is a teacher, the funniest/worst whe’s had would have to be the two sets of twins she had one year called: Benson and Hedges, and Harley and Davidson.
I also know someone with the last name Power, first name Starr.
I like unusual names, but not too out there, though I do think there’s a reason that traditional names have managed to become traditional names rather than being phased out through the passage of history.
I did always laugh at the idea of calling a kid Jon[09qrew8yreq/.”p where all bar the first 3 letters are silent

Congratulations to you both on your 3rd!!! I’m not yet pregnant, but starting to think of baby names, and I and my husband both like “Andala” for a girl. It’s Arabic and it means “song of the nightingale.” I was thinking it would be easy to call her “Andi” or “Andy” for a nickname.🙂

Ahhhh I love the sports metaphor! This begs the question: how far are parents willing to go in order to make sure their child NEVER meets anyone with the same name so that they can always tell their little cherub “there’s no like you in the whole world. your name is like a snowflake.” The novelty keeps one engaged at first, but then it’s just a pain in ze rear.

I gave my daughter a simple, elegant, feminine name, Nicholle. When she grew up, she named her business “Nee-sho-lay” Skin Care.

My late father-in-law was given several Catholic names as a child; Philip, Joseph, Anthony Pflug. As a grown-up, when asked his name, he introduced himself as Phillipe Jospeha Antonio Pescquale Falooge.

A friend’s granddaughter is named “Nevaeh” (Heaven spelled backward).

Years ago, I worked with two clients with interesting names; Will Barrow and John John Johnson.

My husband and I could never settle on a girl’s names either. Luckily we ended up with 2 boys. My mother told me that the name “Fee-Mah-lay” came from no English speaking people who could not fill out their birth certificates. On the line that specified the name nurses would just write “Female” or “Male” , and some groups assumed that a name had been assigned to their child. There are apparently Mah-lays running around too. Though this could just be some sort of urban legend.
Best of luck to you and your wife!

One of my favorite stories from my mother’s student teaching days: She had a little girl in her class named Placenta. Oh yeah. No, it wasn’t a Spanish name, I have a Mexican friend named Placencia. That’s different. No, this poor child’s name was Placenta Jones. Little white girl with blonde pigtails, mom said.
My fiance’s niece’s name is not very common. Erith. I feel like I’m lisping when I say that. My fiance and I call her Pinky. He says he’s waiting for one of his relatives to name their kid Shaqua Niqua or Shenanigans. He says he will disown whoever does.

This post reminded me of an article I read recently about names that were outlawed in certain countries. Unlike America, the rest of the world seems to have some pity for unborn babies and have laws that say you can’t name your child anything that would be harmful to them later on in life – ie really weird names that would get them unfairly teased. Some were a bit crazy, though, and the countries actually had a list of names you could choose from.

Either way, good luck! I don’t see Wednesday, Cuba or Chevy being too weird (celebrity references!) or Albina (as long as you don’t worry about the meaning, it sounds nice,) but I have noticed that weird symbols are finding a place in names and its a bit unsettling. Good luck to the kids trying to not only learn the alphabet but how to spell their name with symbols!

loving your post and well done on FP. i went with ordinary names for my four but they suit each child. i have a Sebastian Thomas Peter, a Shannon Julie Eva, a Shayne Peter Aaron and a Sonni James Preston.

congratulation on baby number 3 and hope the rest of the pregnancy goes to plan.

My Dad’s family is Irish, that’s why they spelled it that way. I once told my Dad that Tyre is a city pronounced Tear. (I taught a student from Lebanon who told me that) He said, “well, you’re Anglo-Saxon and it’s Tire”

My father worked at the UofC hospitals and brought home this one:
A woman gave birth to a little girl, looked at her own medical chart and decided the baby’s name would be Gonorrhea (pronounced guh- NOR – ee – uh) cause it looked pretty! Faceplant!

Great Post. Congrats on the little one on the way! My sisters name is Lara and she is always up set that people call her Laura. She’s constantly saying “it is pronounced Lah-rah” (no pronunciation on the ‘-‘ though, lol). You would think that people could get this name right since it is said exactly as it is spelled. lol Goes to show that simple isn’t always better; people can mess that up too! lol
I love the name Emma- Leigh. Pronounced as one name to say ‘Emily’. The reason for the spelling is that one name would then honor two of my family members in one go! I plan on having a big family but I have a huge extended family so in order to honor all of the family members that i would like to I have to have as many combos as possible! lol.
I wish you and you family many blessings with the new addition–Whatever you decide him or her!

Oh so happy I found you. Damned awesome. Had me laughing out loud like a psycho! So my suggestions are:

almonde – hippy accent on the final e, pronunciation french style emphasis on onde
rat or ‘furryrat’ – no comment, by why not????
duck pond – emphasis on the pond, not duck. Once again, french pepe le pie accent!

You can always do what I did… I convinced my wife to name my daughter after a deep space nine star trek [ female ] character: Keira Nyress. She wasn’t happy with it at first but I thought it would grow on her. We thought atleast no one else would have her name… I was wrong, I now see movie star and other children who have keira as their name… oh well, she is still my baby girl…. LOL

Oh! &! I love &!!! I’m gonna try to convince one of my daughters to name her baby &!!! Her middle name can be @!!! (just kidding)

I like names that are not overly common but not freakishly unusual. I don’t want ten kids to answer when my kid’s name is called, but I don’t want people to be like WTF either.

For my girls I picked the names Kaila, Darcee and Autumn. My granddaugher is named Ivy, and my two unborn granddaughters will be named Olivia and Alanna. I dunno if any of those names jump out at you but just to give you some ideas.

I was one of four Chris-variants in my elementary school class. It only got worse as I grew and my cousin Chris in the same town with the same last name (other gender) entered the same circles. Fast forward to first pregnancy. We chose Lauren. I’d never known a Lauren. Turned out to be the 20th most popular girl name the year we used it. Sigh. One day as I chatted with a fellow Mom as our Laurens rammed around. As it was time to go, I hollered “Lauren Patricia” … thinking I’m so clever to specify MY Lauren.only to have BOTH of them whip around and say, “What?!”

This was so much fun (the basketball metaphor, the names AND the comments)! Congrats to you and your family on your upcoming addition! Congrats on FP, as well! I may have missed it because I haven’t been able to read all of the comments here, but has anyone suggested ” : ” ? Following your train of thought that ‘&’ would be a unique, original choice, I thought it could be ” : ” when written and spoken – “Colon”. What do you think?

lol! Sorry! That’s awful, I know! It was the first thing that crossed my mind after I finished reading your explanation of “&”. Great post! 🙂

Damn! You have exposed my wicked plot – the idea was that I would get my daughter to name her kids Anaki or Padme – OK, I gave up on “Darth” a while back (but how many kids with mess with him in the playground)😉 T..

My sisters and I have unusual names and it was both blessing and curse when were growing up… mine is probably the most “normal” – Nina (don’t ask how many times I heard “Oh, Like the Nina, Pinta & Santa Maria?). My sister, Elin, now has famous company in Tiger’s ex-wife (the name is Scandinavian) and my sister, Alyta, has the prettiest name that many people mispronounce (Ah-lee-tah). My husband and I were fighting over the boy’s name on the way to the hospital with our first – thank goodness she came out a girl and solved that dilemma!

If I were to write all the awful names I’ve heard, I’d be typing for hours! Let me give you the ones off that stand out most for me:

Infiniti – a girl in one of my classes. I’m not kidding.
Tekeevia Lajoseialan and Akeevia Lajoseia (twin siblings)
Aniyia
Takia
Starkenya
Xanax (Dead serious! I met a boy with this name!)
Foxxi, Roxxi and Sexxi (okay, Roxxi’s not bad, but the other two? I’d say so. And their last name was Stoner)
Cinderella Sunshine (Again, I’m dead serious. I wish I was joking)

I actually know a guy by the name of Chevy. I’ve also known of someone named Trouble. Who names their child what they don’t want to deal with later on? I wish some people would think about the weight of a name before thinking they’re cute, clever, or unique. Being unique should not entail ridicule or constant questioning!

Okay, those three posts just made me laugh so hard I started tearing up! By the way, I’ve seen Harry Cox before. In fact, I saw the name about 3 nights ago on some show I was watching (it was in the credits). Poor guy!

So, I saw that someone caught Cuba Gooding Jr. for you already (as well as Wednesday from the Addams Family, but I think she was supposed to be weird anyway, so I don’t know if I’d count that)… seems that you also missed Chevy Chase.

Also, I think it is hilarious that you had no problem finding a boy’s name, but can’t decide on one for a girl. My husband and I had the opposite problem. We had a girl’s name picked out since, really, before I was even pregnant. At 20 weeks, we found out we were having a boy (and, since my husband was convinced we were having a girl, we didn’t both picking out a boy’s name), and it took us another few weeks after that to finally settle on a name. Luckily, at 30 weeks now, the name is ready to go and has been met with approval by pretty much everyone we’ve told (not that it matters to us, but how often can you say that?!).

I went to elementary school with a girl named Saskia. … Viper? Yoiks. I’m rethinking my “what were they thinking?” about other kids in my school, like Merri Merriweather and the 3 sisters Merry, Sunny and Gay.

My sister, Darlene, married Steve Darley and took his last name. Since we called her Dar when we were kids, I think of her as Dar Darley, but the Darleys tend to go the whole nine yards and saw Darlene Darley.

Great read. Congrats on being pregnant! My wife is due with our first on May 22. A baby girl. We decided to announce the name of our future baby since my cousin’s wife is pregnant as well. Were going with my grandmothers name, Stella. And since my wife dropped her middle name when we married; it was a no brainer to give it to future Stella. The funny thing to me is once we decided on the name, I’ve been seeing it everywhere. Crazy.

Great post – hilarious. Best wishes to you and your wife.
I once met twins named:
Orange Jello (boy), pronounced, “Orangelo,” and, Lemon Jello (the girl), pronounced, you guessed it, “Lemongello.” Put an emphasis on the 2nd syllable of each ‘name’ please. And I also met a little girl named “La’trine,” – enough said.

Wow! I was just about to write about twins with those exact same names…wonder if they’re the same ones, or if there are multiple sets of unfortunates. My sister’s friend used to teach elementary school and those were not the worst names. She also had a Shithead (pronounced “Shuh-THADE”) and at least one Asshole (“a-SOLE-ee”). Personally, I think that’s child abuse.

on another note, when I got married, I wasn’t allowed to turn my maiden name into a middle name, unless I wanted to give up the middle name I already had!

I’ve heard a few weird stories about names that are probably urban legends.
One is ‘Syphilis’. The person uses C. Phylis as an adult.
The other is ‘Nosmoking’. Nos-mo-king.
Another is “Orangejello” or-on-gell-o
I actually know someone named “Icylou” (eye-si-lou). Supposedly this was an ingredient written on a bag of animal feed. I was always called by my middle name my whole life, and I was traumatized whenever a substitute teacher would call me by my first name in school, so I can only imagine how tough it must be for a kid to have a weird name.

That has to be the most AWESOME picture of a baby I have ever seen! When I see the babies in the hospital, they are usually giving me that face thinking: You are going to put that probe where???? Great post!

Hilarious and quite refreshing! My husband and I had fun naming our twin girls and son, but hearing some of the suggestions was definitely “eye-brow raisers”. Let’s just say, we took the route our kids appreciate🙂
Thanks for the great post!

All I can think is that Wednesday probably owes its popularity to The Addams Family.

I suggest not going with a name from a language not common in your area. My mother went French (which is fine on its own, as she’s Acadian) for me, and it was really frustrating given that I grew up around mainly anglophones. Constantly having to correct spelling and pronunciation, and if I hear that it’s ‘pretty’ one more time …(sorry, but hearing that from every. single. person. you. meet. gets really old after a while)

The Rowan is a tree that is thought to be about gathering all wisdom.
So a boy named Rowan might follow a scholarly path if he were to be like his namesake.
If, on the other hand, he were to be the opposite, as an earlier commenter suggested was the case, he would run screaming from every opportunity to learn anything.
A regular Rebel without a cause….

That would be James Dean.
Dean is a nice male name.

I never had any boys, but if I had, I wanted to name one Eli. or Cory

I had five girls, named Angela Coryn, Lacy Jennifer, Bethany Christina, Emily Maria, and Naomi Mercedes (Spanish for Mercies – it was a girls name first – the car was named after the girl)
You never know what’s going to come along and upset a carefully thought out name.
Congratulaitons on your FP status. Great Baby pic!

Our family name is Hyde, and my dad very seriously toyed with the idea of naming me Formalda thus leading to Formalda Hyde. My sister narrowly escaped being named Jerusha, though it’s her middle name now. I don’t think any of us knows where it comes from. To be honest my real name, Aislinn, makes people panic anyway. Most people call me Ass-Lan or Iceland…{sigh}

It’s actually pronounced Ace-Lynn but when I was little I liked to pretend I was Aslan cuz that seemed way cooler. I also went through a phase where I asked people to call me Rebecca cuz it was so much simpler than trying to explain my real name. ha.

Our family last name is Hyde and my dad toyed very seriously with naming me Formalda, then I’d be Formalda Hyde. That’s a fun one. Though to be honest Aislinn isn’t that much better, it makes everyone panic when they see it. My sister narrowly escaped being named Jerusha, my mother was pretty intent on having it be her first name, now it’s her middle name. I still have no idea where it comes from.

HAHA!!! That’s funny. I’m sure someone is bound to come across your blog and think, “Hmmm, ‘&,’ that sounds like a great name!” But really, parents need to be more careful when they are naming their kids. These names will most likely stick with them for the rest of their lives. My real name is not as horrible as the ones on the list you made, but it is hard to pronounce. People have all manner of trouble pronouncing and spelling my name and sometimes I just give up correcting them. So I think parents really need to think long and hard about the names they give their children…. and also give them many names so that if they hate the first name you give them, they can have something to fall back on.

lol fantastic. We have a few not so great names at the nursery where I work but nothing along those lines. My favourite normal but not is Teylaa…imagine a Brummie accent and you can see why her parents decided that was how Taylor is spelt!

We also have a parent with 6 kids all named Sha- something. We have Shamiyah (girl) and Shamiyal (boy) at the nursery at the moment

Mesiah. That one will always be a memory. I also have experienced: DeIvory and DeOvery (that’s how they sound), Spontaneous, , Sincere, Queen, Sister, and Naturala. Personally, my daughter is Chenielle (after her dad’s sweaters) and my friend’s son is Paisley (after his dad’s shirts).

I remember when this article came out. The name Cecil Clorox has been burned into my retinas. My girls have old family names, so when you say their names out loud it sounds like we are at a nursing home.

It’s cool you guys have gone both routes before in deciding how you found out your children’s sex. The journalist in me had to find out my son’s gender before he was born. My husband was going to try and hide it from me.

My husband’s sister is a nurse. She has said she’s seen “Female” on the birth certificate more times than she cares to count.

And oddly enough, I have a friend named “Boz” (pronounced like “boss” since most people find the z taxing to say *sigh*). Anyway, it’s funny to think that my friend’s boss calls him with his name, reversing their roles. LoL!

LOL… as I read the responses to this post my side hurts from laughing… Some of the names I’ve heard of are Ozvalda, Precious, Patience, Passion, Ignatious, Moon Unit, Coco Chanel, Rainbow, Shaniqua… I could go on, but I’ll stop there.

I thoroughly enjoyed your post! I have an unusual name and also bestowed unusual names on my children (although we gave them normal middle names in case they couldn’t stand our creativity!). We also didn’t name them after objects or symbols. Aside from the occasional miss-pronunciation, things have gone pretty well. My daughters have embraced their names and I have never met another person in my 46 years who shared my name! – Best of luck, Mala

HAHAHAH! This is awesome and so funny at the same time. I like the one you made up “&” pronounced like something it’s totally not. Great laugh to start my Friday and Freshly Pressed worthy indeed!! Congrats on the baby!

Oh, please, justalittlebrit. “…like something it’s totally not.” Really? That symbol, &, is actually called an ampersand. You had to get on the interwebs to read the original post. Next time you see something you don’t know about, could you look it up before you comment? Thanks!

Sure thing! Learn something new everyday🙂 Pretty sad I didn’t know what it meant, I thought that it was just a funny post. Oops but it still is a very funny post! I definitely was NOT trying to insult anybody just didn’t know. Have a great day!

In justalittlebrit’s defense, in Latin, the ampersand symbol stands for “et” (meaning “and”) and the actual lines of the symbol looks like the cursive capital E and the diagonally crossing lines stand for the t. She already apologized, and let’s just leave it at that.

Again, in justalittlebrit’s defense, the name “La-a” shouldn’t really be said with “dash” in it since the dash is made with 2 hyphens (during the typewriter days) and is longer than the normal dash. If it’s just a short “-,” then it should really be said as “La-hyphen-ah.” As you see, she doesn’t really be persecuted as much. We make mistakes.

All the same, she’s right when she said that this is a really funny post!

a few years ago there was a story in the paper about a couple who named their son Drew Peacock (say it aloud) and even when they realised what they’d done, they decided not to change it – bit cruel for the kid growing up!

Names must always be considered with last names, even the non-unique ones. Hubby’s name is Button, and though I really like the name William, I can’t risk the poor kid being called ‘Billy Button’. So before we even try, there are a bunch that are just off the table to start with.

I keep asking my pregnant friends to name their baby Janessa or Jaren- my kids’ names- I don’t know what I want someone to do this- probably because I want someone else to love my choices so much that they’ll name their first born child Janessa or Jaren- Great Read!!

I have actually known people who named their child this based on the car. They thought it sounded “rich.” Based on the above comments, the name is quite rich with history. Did not mean offend anyone. Please accept any apology.

The second one was from a woman entering the hospital with the last name King. According to a friend she couldn’t think of a name for her son on the way, and then a magical little sign led her in the right direction. A few hours later and Nosmo King was born.

Yes these are weird baby names. Some of them virtually impossible to pronounce. what about combination first and last names. The notorious case with the last name of Hogg. A Texas coupe named their baby girls Ima. Despite popular belief there was no Ura Hogg. Still Ima Hogg is a terrible name,.
I knew several Kelly Greens and a Hunter Green. Or Rose Bush for that matter.

Congrats on the Fresh Press! I actually did hear of a woman naming her baby Ampersand (spelled out though… apparently she thought it was “pretty” but didn’t know what an ampersand IS to be bothered that she was naming her little girl after punctuation). Leads to a really handy shorthand though…

The weirdest named person I know of goes by the name of “Chicklets”. She was a girl in my school and truly hated her name. People used to actually go up to her and ask her why are you called “Chicklets”..and she would immediately start fuming. Really, parents should save their children from a lifetime of embarrassment and name them sensibly even if it has to be unusual.

Hahahaha, I love reading posts like this that just make me laugh. Thanks for sharing and yes, those are some crazy names. Sometimes I wonder…I mean look at celebrities, naming their kids things like “Apple” and “Coco.” Names that I feel are more fitting for a pet.

Kind of funny you mentioned La-a though. I have a friend who knows sisters whose names are La-a and Ta-a. Hahaha.

My mother was a secretary at an elementary school…are you sitting down…
Twins named Male and Female. The mother said she was so upset the hospital named her two girls before she had the chance. The names were pronounced Molly and Femolly.
Peach State

Hope these aren’t repeats. Didn’t see them anywhere…
Some really bad names I’ve run across in various places include:
first name: Dyna middle name: Mite (poor girl)
a lady named Tequila (who had sibs named: Brandy, Jack Daniels, and Jim Beam)
and a lady whose name was Funque Ho (pronounced, yes, as “funky ho” The really sad thing about this is that this is her married name. Apparently whatever she had before was worse?)

Makes me grateful I only got stuck with a common name that 50 billion other people have rather than something “unique”. It’s too easy to slip over the line from “unique” to “hideously terrible”…

I have worked as a game announcer for the last 15 years, and I am cursed out by at least one parent at every event due to a botched pronunciation of a player’s name. Basketball games, football games, soccer games, and track meets all feature athletes with names that were spelled phonetically. How am I supposed to know how to properly pronounce “Jakwayza,” “Kiana,” or “Tayquon?”

Nice post! I prefer sticking to usual names though, so that the name will be formal and timeless. Even if there are a lot of Emmas or Williams in this world, so what? Even in Korea, they have 3 singers with the same “Kim Kibum” name and that is all right. So what if there are three Kibums in Korea? As for English names, no big deal with having a formal and usual name and having a lot of namesakes for that matter.

I wonder if the poor child I saw at a birthday party once has had her name changed. It came before some very tragic world events and I think her parents should have thought it through some more – Tsunami.

Congratulations on baby #3! I know what you mean though with all the ridiculousness with celebrities naming their children stuff like: Apple, Blue Ivy, Everly Bear and Banjo! It’s like pick a random household object and BOOM baby name!

I like the traditional ones (though yes my name is Daijah – pronounced Deja). But nothing too whacked out that scars your child for life!

Good luck on finding the one that best suits your baby and congratulations on freshly pressed!

Great blog! There are too many options for the crazies to have a ball! I wonder how many children change their names when they grow up? I spetn my whole life hating my name Emma and wishing I was called Jacquie- quite tragic but I think I had it easy. Hmmmm La-La…..isn’t that a Teletubby?

The country I live in has very strict rules for registered baby names, you can’t name your kid anything, but some terrible idea can slip over the line: Fradi – this is a football club in Hungary, and some unlucky little boy with this name.

But we have nice ones: Raspberry, Sunshine, Blessing, Flower.

The worst: An italian friend of mine lives in my country for a few years. Her little girl is named Giuseppina, her pet name from her first day is Pina (pee-nah), which is cute, but only outside our borders, because “pina” is a pretty rude word for ehm, the female genital. Nice to shout after the kid on a crowded place…

We have nine children and did some experimenting with names. We named our firstborn, Jolene. She hated it and, after a divorce, had it changed to Jo. The second got Charisma and she loves it.

Our sixth was our boldest choice: A mother’s “Joy” was combined with “A Roe” (from the Song of Solomon). The result – “A Roe, A Joy” – hence “Aroea Joy.” Aroea was also bold in naming her’s. The first one got Cainen Knight. The ink on the certificate was barely dry when someone said, “Oh now we have a Canaanite in the family.”

Yes! My friend who worked in a pediatrician’s office met a pair of twin named “Lemonjello” and “Orangello.” AND, someone named their girl “Gonorrhea” because she thought the word sounded pretty!!
I think a really unique name nowadays would be Jane or Sue or Samantha.

Dude, great post! You are a good writer, a delight to read (I would caution you on the use of the term “the wife.” It could get you injured severely).

I understand a parent’s desire to make their kids unique (“Unique:” another name I have seen), but parents are idiots. My ‘rents pushed the edge naming me “Clark,” which was unique, and a source of a lot of kidding and teasing as I grew up. “Bill” would have been ok, but, oh well.

However, I think many parents are idiots, saddling their kids with names clearly designed for social statements, or whatever (Moon Unit Zappa, god Slick). Morons. The parent feels all warm inside, like they are cool, and the poor kid has to live with their given name.

We have a kid running around this part of the nation with a name pronounced Shi-theed. It’s spelled Shithead. Really.

Anyhow, I really enjoy your writing, well done. Congrats on the Freshly Pressed. Well deserved!!

Now that was a fun read! we too had a baby just a fortnight ago and i can totally relate to the crazy name suggestions and superbly long shortlists! great going there and wish u both the best for the rest of the pregnancy!

If you use one of these “not quite pronounced the way it is spelt” names, beware of relatives who will try and correct your pronunciation choice, or punish your spelling choice, by sticking to a different pronunciation than yours and trying to make it stick.

I teach Korean kids English, and they all choose English names to use when they’re in my classes. I’ve had a Legendary, a Dragon, a Simba, a Magic and a Pikachu so far – any of those tickle your fancy? I love it when a new student hasn’t got an English name and I can choose for them, although I’ve so far resisted calling anyone Frodo, Bilbo, Boromir, Aragorn, Pippin, Merry, Gandalf, Grimli, Aragorn or Legolas.

Linnea is a common name in Sweden, in honour of Linneo, an important Swedish botanist. I guess the spelling you found was for some reason modified. I find “Linnea” very beautiful and I know a lovely girl called like that. Have you realized that names get beautiful or ugly depending on the people you know named like that?

Linnea is a common name in Sweden. Linneo was a very important Swedish botanist and is used in its feminine form in his honour. I guess the spelling has been modified in the list you found, but Linnea is a nice name. I know a wonderful girl called like that. (Have you realized that even weird names become beautiful when you know a beautiful person name like that?)

Oh wow. Some of the names you listed, and the ones added? Really, people? “Soulja?” ugh. Add “Bella” to the list of overdone, don’t-everyone-turn-around-at-the-same-time names currently being used. (Just cant bring myself to ever name my daughter after a character in a movie series where the main goal is to have a boyfriend. Just…cant…) The last 3 years I’ve worked in a family portrait studio. The overdones and the whacked-outs are incredible!

I think I’m going to name my child “Ralph.” it will be spelled “Ralph,” but when her name is called in class, she can say, “It’s spelled Ralph, but pronounced “Bella.”)

Hi, I risked being called Apollonia, Isotta and Asia – Thanks god my father put his foot down and enforced my name: Olimpia – Ok so its still pretty unique but better than the rest! (at least thats the way I see it) 🙂 Goodluck choosing! And congrats on the freshly pressed!

nice pics! Congrats on the third child. This one could be a game changer for you guys. 20 weeks down, 20 to go. Remember you have to play 4 quarters. Stick to your game plan utilize your time outs well. You’re going to have a tough opponent. Hang in there! 🙂 I’ve got two boys myself. Trying to go 12 rounds with those guys is rough. March Madness, who you routing for? I’ll watch the final four this weekend see what happens.

Haha, this blog is great! Some of those names are awful, really are – could you imagine calling your child any of those names? Well someone must have for them to be in the book right? Crazy really, I wonder what must come across you to call your child that.
Anyway, all the best for the future.
Again, great blog.

I don’t usually post online, but I kept trying to avoid this one and could not. The posts here read as though they were written by a bunch of teenaged girls. Who are any of you to make fun of another person’s name. And for the teacher who posted her students’ names, shame on you. I’m sure that the children felt your ridiclule and you are responsible for that attack in God’s eyes. America is a beautiful country founded on freedom and a respect for individual choices. Some of the names listed are clearly culturally significant to different groups. So should they stick to “Sally, Jane, and Martha” to satisfy the lack of insight of a few ethnocentric “think like me” people?

I agree that a child shouldn’t be named anything abusive or derogatory or embarrassing (A child I knew named “vagina” comes to mind. But our country is more intelligent and tolerant than the comments that I am reading here would imply. By the way, my name is VERONICA. You would be amazed how many people can’t figure out that it is Latin and very much “Western” and ask me how to pronounce it. Is it my name, or is it their ethnically biased eyes that cause their ears to assume that because I’m ethnic, my name is “weird”?

I think the second name is actually Linnéa – but sometimes fonts and coding doesn’t recognize the é and turns it into other weird stuff… So that name might not be as crazy as it seems. The rest of them made me chuckle, tho.🙂

I think i have the solution to that .I am from Greece in Greece we do this .If it is a girl it will take from the side of your wife mother , for example if your wife mother is annabele , your girl will have the name of annabele .In the other side if it is a boy it will take your father name and it will be (your father name ) easy .
Now the hard part if you have done that and it is a boy it must take your wife father name. First yours Wife parents names and then yours parents .With this trick you will lost conversations like (This was not my choice ) .

I always love people who name their children after inanimate objects – I am not going to name any because I don;t want to be flamed!! but things features on the landscape, blocks of wood etc. Having triplet boys, we found coming up with six boys names (first and middle) really difficult – one was almost called “triplet three”. But my favourite is a woman in the US calle Marijuana Pepsi – the first name is apparently a Puerto rican version of Mary-Jane – but the second? And she is a school counsellor. Seiously. Google it.

May I also advise no hyphenated first names? I’ve got one. Short story: In Vietnamese, it made more “sense” but I can tell you the hassles from having a hyphenated name. Some state’s computer systems (eg. Driver’s license) do not accept hyphens but US passports do. AMEX allows it, some Mastercards, don’t. When I have time not wrasslin’ my 3 kids and not traveling, I will change my name. Congrats to your upcoming bundle and may you be blessed with a healthy baby!

Please look up your future child’s name in a medical dictionary before taking the plunge! My poor niece is named Amelia (means lacking a limb), there’s nurses named Melena (bloody faeces) and children I know named after diseases (e.g. Addison). It’s not fair when they become a health professional (or related to one in my case) and they find out that they’re essentially defined as a bloody poo and have to write that word on a regular basis.

Brilliant! Good effort with the “made-up” names. Hope you don’t mind if I claim “&-Ampersand” for my first born? I think it’ll sound regal with my surname (Cepelak)-Now there’s a mouthful for the little terror😛

Good luck choosing a name, it can be hard!
My Nieces names are Lily Rose, Isabella Grace, Amielle Claire( pronounced Ami-elle) and Poppy Rose to my other sister.

We havent had kids yet but we have already chosen the names ; Dorian Wesley ( from the story of the guy who never ages because made a deal with the devil)
Norah Rose ( family name) and we can decide on the third name but here are some ones i like – Edalyn ( ed-da-lyn) Evette, Estelle ( E-Stell) , Evaleen

whatever one we pick will have the middle name Milly .. hope its been helpful🙂

You should see some of the names we used to get in Spain being named after the Saint of the day! the thing is I cannot share some as they are lost in translation. Hope it is not a hot and humid summer!

I have to mention that in Finland (I don’t know if anybody else has mentioned this, I don’t have time to read all the comments, with two toddlers n’all, sigh), even though there are some rules about what sort of names you can give your children, there are still kids named ‘Yoda’ and ‘Jedi’ running around. Also some American car names too.

Some of my favorite traditional Finnish names, from an English-speaker standpoint are: Into, Unto, and Yrjö (must be the most difficult name to pronounce, I don’t even know if I can describe it, also nowadays a slang word for vomit, unfortunately).

I might have an explanation for “Cuba” – it’s a very popular polish name (i’ts spelled “Kuba”, yes, same as the country, but it’s a short form of Jakub – Jackob), so I guess some people who moved from Poland might use it as a way of connecting with their homeland but still give the baby an “American” name.
(Besides, I don’t quite get it – it’s okay to name a baby Arizona or Paris, but wrong to name it Alaska or Cuba? Why??)

Haha!🙂 Brilliant post! I’m afraid I’m one of those people who likes ‘different’ names, but this post made me feel normal!
What I find priceless is when people have funny surnames – my grandmother went to school with a ‘gru-en-baum’ which was spelt, wait for it, green bum!!!
I also used to joke with a teacher at my college saying ‘is your bottom cold miss?’ as her surname was winter bottom. That, quite literally, has come back to bite me in the butt though as my married surname is now shoebottom!

Best advice I received – give the child a name with which they could be a rock star or a CEO. This did curb my tendency towards sweet names like Molly🙂 I did know a family though who had 3 girls and their names were Shantal, Suzette and, wait for it, they wanted them all to start with an ‘s’ so picked another word they knew started with an ‘s’ – Shardonnay (yep, like the wine!). Great post and blog and grats on being freshly pressed!

That was what I thought. But I fear: If you can proof that a name exists somewhere in the world, you can use it in Germany as well. They did not want to allow Chelsea at first, because it is a placename, but as the amrican president’s daughter was calles like this, it was o. k. in the end.
But in Germany the name alsways has to show the sex, so you would have to name your child & Tom oder & Jenny.😉 No, symbols, numbers, etc. are not allowed, luckily!

Great post! Several friends are having babies and I hold my breath when I wait to hear what they’re called, hoping to release a sigh of relief but sometimes releasing a “what”? Some names aren’t ridiculous, like those you list, but are just unattractive and one couple of friends gave their newborn son 2 surnames as first names so now he has 3 surnames!

Like it is always said BABIES ARE MEANT TA BE BABIES and not CORPORATE NAMES

people name them for their styles but what they forget is that once the tag is on CHILD WOULD SUFFER THE DARKEST CORNER of being adressed by the name as well as THE HORRORS OF NICKNAMES being formed on its account!!!!!!!!

Very funny post- worthy of Freshly Pressed! Congrats!
My kids find it very funny that my first daughter was named Claire because I watched The Cosby Show way back then and thought Claire Huxtabel was awesome. It’s particularly funny because I am now a total TV snob and am lucky if I can name 1 or 2 current shows. Good luck!

Must add my own – as a parent my kids are Dragon, Phoenix and Pallas-Athena – yes, everyone thinks she’s a castle. And no, we didn’t know that Dragon & Phoenix are the royal animal couple of China until we worked there for 3 months – fortunately the Chinese were blown away by this.

As a teacher a couple of the worst were a boy called Bright who simply wasn’t and a girl called Blessing who was anything but. Also a load of Princesses and Lovelys

My husband taught a child called Pongo, mm…

Tis a fraught business baby naming – I’m pleased mine are happy with theirs and show no intention of changing – they like their bit of exotica in this world.

My wife and I are expecting our 3rd– a boy. (We didn’t find the gender of the first two.) We both like the name Wil, until you put it with our last name- Robinson. As in, Wil Robinson from Lost in Space. But then I thought we could give him the middle name of ‘Danger’. Then when people say (in a bad robot voice) ‘Danger, Wil Robinson’, he could say, ‘No, Danger’s my middle name…’

Okay, I said it as a joke, but picking names can be hell. Since she was about 12 my wife wanted to name a daughter Isabelle. I was okay with that, but she changed her mind about a week before the baby was due. There was a mad rush to think of something new.

I used to usher during university graduations, and I remember how everyone applauded when one of the deans called out Balboa, Rocky. Haha!

The worst I’ve heard was from one of my literature professors who once had a student named Circumcision (spoken in Spanish, thir-cum-thi-thion). SHE was born on the day of Christ’s circumcision according to the Catholic calendar. That was just dreadful.

There’s a *kind* of person, who has to tell people what to do, how to live, and what to name their children. These *kinds* of people would prefer people like me not go to their neighborhood, especially with a hoodie on. And are known to wipe out indigenous peoples for fun.

This is the first post that I have read of yours, and I enjoyed it very much. Its amazing some of the names that people pick for their kids. And like most of these posts I will give you a name that you are sure to love….. Cherish, if she is a girl! Its unique and fun and shows that you love your child very much!

I worked at a massage clinic back in high school as a receptionist and a gentleman by the name of Moe made an appointment. His last name was Telsiks. Moe Telsiks. I couldn’t help but say “We’ll leave the light on.” as he walked back to the massage room for his session…like he hadn’t heard that one before.

Man, you’re so right. I can’t stand quirky, or pop culture names… being a skinny white kid called Jamal or Beyonce won’t make you cool in school… the play ground is actually the killing ground for cotton-wool wrapped kids.

Just for the record here, my friend (who is in his late twenties) had the ability to choose a middle name when he got his citizenship. He took a poll from everyone he knew and finally decided on my choice of the middle name “&”. It was hysterical and ridiculous but we definitely helped that be a real thing. I’m sorry, and you’re welcome.

Wow, People really get excited by this topic…
But, I suppose I am posting as well.
My name (given at birth) is Nazli Pronounced Nuzz-Lah.
It is a pretty common name where I was born, but having lived in Canada since I was 2, it has been pretty interesting…
I love having a third grade teacher tell me I was pronouncing my nae wrong and telling me that from now on it was to be pronounced Nazz-Lee…
she was an unfortunate person.
I went by Naz for years, until I realized that I loved my name and reclaimed it when I turned 28. I think that the people who care about me and knowing me will take the time and effort to learn how to pronounce it properly…
But, having said that..
My name has an odd pronunciation due to the fact that the English language lacks the accents of my native language; when people spell names in odd-ball contrived ways simply for the sake of doing so… I just think it is silly and in a way reeks of ..
well, it just is really contrived.
Unique names are great, and they definitely make you stronger.
But, I think whatever you do..try to maybe go for a balanced name, where on is more unique and the other (the middle name) is more conventional…a balance of sorts.
So, the child as they grow into their personality and character have a choice of going by the name they feel fits best for them…

Hey, I was googling to see if others with my name share the same complaints.I have lost count of the number of times my name has been butchered into Nazil, Nazila, Nazia, or worse NAZI (who in their right mind would name their kid Nazi???) I guess you are of Turkic or Persian origin. Like you I have spent about half of my life in the ‘West’ (US now UK and possibly again US) and now use Nazla in unofficial settings-even then people read that as nazal. If I could choose I’d opt out of this name. I also went to elementary school in the US and had teachers refer to me as nazleeee, that however, is nearly not as bad as NAZI. I wish I had a name more easily Westernized like Sebla or Deniz or Alara!

Why?
I believe whole-heartedly that if someone can not take the time to learn my name or even attempt to do so…
Then they are most definitely not worth my time.
Why feel bad about who you are, because of others’ laziness?
N

Great post! I was in a playground a couple of weeks ago with my son when we met d’Artagnan (ie. the fourth Musketeer) and his sister Diesel. I kid you not. Oh, and I once lived next door to a lady who would scream loudly into the street for her cat every evening. THERAPY! THERAPY! Hmmm.. animal names… maybe that’s an idea for another post.

I’m sure someone else has given this warning already, but be careful with initials as well – make sure that they wouldn’t be embarrassed to have them on their LLBean backpack or something. I know from personal experience as my initials (although lacking the last letter) spell a certain part of the male anatomy. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

I love that you wrote this. I recently finished reading Freakonomics and the last chapter discusses how one of the worst thing you can do as a parent is name your kid an idiotic name. Especially normal names that are incorrectly spelled, because it will show their future employers that your child is most likely from an uneducated and low income family and therefor they are likely to also be ill educated. I am among the children who were named crazy names. Although, “Racy” is cute for a drag racers daughter, I am always asked whether or not my mom was a stripper or in porn… kind of awkward. It’s great to really consider the effects of what a name means to your child for the rest of it’s life. Good luck picking something!

I read the title of the blog and thought I had to comment. Something I rarely do. I always knew I wanted to name my kids unique names but they don’t fall into any of these categories. I also liked the idea of using family names but wanted something that wasn’t mainstream. The funniest thing though is that my middle child is named Cheyney (pronounced just like Chaney). She is very proud of this name and loves that it’s unusual but still “normal”. Love this post! All the best to you and your wife!

P.S.
My Great Grandmother’s name was America…..I like it but glad I went the “strong like an oak tree” route.

–Reevil (his last name was Lee). His friends called him “Greasy”– M.C. (doesn’t stand for anything)– Vestel– Ila (that’s i-L-a, pronounced “EYE-ler”)–Ina (pronounced “EYE-nee”, like “hiney” only not quite)–Leola

My grandmother’s middle name is “Ozark” after her aunt who was born in a covered wagon crossing the Ozarks.

I favor flowy-sounding girl names: Nadia, Elena, Anneli, Sophia, Maria… maybe I’ll use ’em all on one kid. Wouldn’t that be something!

Hahaha! My Dad was a teacher and had a student named Female! Pronounced just like you wrote it too. He asked her about it one day and she said that her parents couldn’t decide on a name so the hospital wrote “female” on the birth certificate and they decided to keep it and just change the pronunciation. Ironically, my Dad never even realized her name looked like FEE-male because he was told right away that it was pronounced fe-mall-ee. Luckily my SO and I have had our kid names picked out for years now even though we’re still not even close to reaching that landmark yet. Congrats on FP! Just had that happen to me as well🙂 this was a great read!

We like unique names in our family. We have Ember and Zander for our “a little different” names. We have some “normal” names too. Josie, Phillip, Nicolas, and Dakota. Our last but not least little man, however, was given the bestest name we could muster up. His full name is Leonidas Alverian Bam Pokorny. Leonidas after the Spartan King. We felt he needed a good strong name to live up to being the youngest of seven HIS, HERS, and OURS kids. He is the only OURS. My fiance’s Grandmother’s name was Alvera. No matter boy or girl he wanted to name the baby after her in some way, hence the Alverian. I could not find this anywhere as a name. I did find out however that it is a Klingon dung-beetle. I chose Bam in honor of my favorite Jackass – Bam Margera. BAM! Is also how I felt when I found out I was pregnant with this child. I was doing the continuous dosing method with my birth control pills. It obviously did not work for me. He is adorable. I love him. People think that we were crazy with the name. But to me, it fits him perfectly!!

I wish it weren’t true, but I met a girl named Cafeteria. Apparently because her mother was so hungry during her pregnancy, she spent all her time in the….cafeteria. This should qualify as child abuse.

Whooo! I almost got lost scrolling down all the way! Great post. Wonderful observations. Fantastic sense of humor. It is late. I am a word-smith of sorts myself. Just posted an article and logged out. Landed on the “Just Blogged” page. Yours jumped at me and I am calling it my special delight for the day. I will not make name suggestions, if you don’t mind. Will only say thank you for now. For the pleasure of “meeting” you and for knowing that these three wee people have well thought out names given to them by playful, creative parents.

That’s great! A friend and I are working on a similar project, although it’s more focused on successful people with very bizarre names. I personally think something somewhat unique but not totally laughable is the way to go.

I heard some very good advice before the birth of my first child. I think this was from a comedian who was speaking about the terrible names people curse their kids with. He said to go to a busy playground and yell out the the name you’re thinking of using. If 5 kids turn around or you feel like an idiot yelling it in public, it’s not a good name. Then and there we decided that Prince Ziggy Zeppelin was not a good choice.

Really? Queen Nile of the Asia Earth?! Hopefully they weren’t against nicknames, or did you have to spout that off with every role call and any other of the multiple times a day you had to say her name?

I had a great aunt who was named Texarkana Lamar Winchester, and went by the nickname of “Texannie’ – not sure this was any better! She was not from Texas. She had two brothers named “I.M.” and “I.A.” ( I am assuming they were brothers). When she married her surname became “Messamore” and she named one of her children Ora Effie. … People do strange things with names.

Hey, 4 Rooms and the Moon! My grandfather’s name was James R. Messamore. His brother was married to your great aunt. I don’t supposed you’d want to exchange emails with my sister, the official family geneologist? You can reach me over at my website to leave a message: www dot jenniferponce dot com.🙂

Let me preface this comment by saying I’m sure I’ll insult someone with what I say next;
where I live now, there is a very disturbing trend where the sound of the name is the same, they just change the first syllable (and have even taking to making up syllables):
hayden, caden, jayden, aiden, hailey, kailey, Cailynn, Zaylynn…. seriously?

We like unique names. Our baby girl’s name is Ophelia. I didn’t think it was that different. I thought Hamlet was pretty widespread. And it is… in my circles… which consist mostly of liberal arts majors and writers of sad memoirs about broken childhoods. Instead, we have been surprised by the number of (likely illiterate) people who look at us queerly and ask, “Oh, how… interesting. How’d you think of that?” to which I cheerily reply, “We named her after this lady who goes crazy and KILLS HERSELF!” We didn’t choose the name so that we could mess with people, but we do consider it an added bonus.

I will say that my niece does have a girl in her class (high school senior) with the name La-a and the girl gets mad if you don’t say her name correctly, and I thought it was hysterical when my niece first told me this. Who would have thought that there might be more than one poor girl with the name La-a…

I’m going to disagree with Jenny. There definitely ARE bad baby names. I know, because my Dad saddled me with a name that made people automatically laugh the minute they heard it.

Maybe in this day & age where many names border on odd it might go over better, but I sure wouldn’t try it. You grow up thinking you’re ugly. It’s no fun to have to tell people your name knowing they’ll bust out laughing. It hurts terribly. And when you’re a teenager and the cute guy across the street does it, it’s the last straw.

I finally couldn’t stand it anymore. One day I went to the park and when a girl asked me my name I said Christine. And she didn’t laugh. that was a first for me, that you could actually tell people your name and have them keep a straight face. I had a row with my dad about it, but from that point I never looked back and did legally change it just before I was 14.

Sometimes the other kids found out and would tease me. Years later the teens of a friend found out and THEY teased me. And it still hurt.

Maybe I’m just a crybaby, but I changed my name 45 years ago and I STILL don’t tell people what my name once was. There’s still too much pain when they laugh about it and start to tease me–and they always do. I have spilled the beans on occasion and regretted it.

People who give their children these names ought to be charged with child abuse.

It is illegal to name your children curse words and things that are derogatory, because it would be considered child abuse. Some names are considered child abuse for the reasons you have stated and there have been court case for it in the past.

I can’t believe that people you told after the fact (as in after you told them how much it bothered you) they still laughed at you. Then again, I don’t know the name. I still think they should have been able to hold it in during a serious conversation though.

Out of curiosity Christine, did you have any siblings? Did your father give them names that made people make fun of them too? What possessed him to name you something that made people make fun of you? Wasn’t he aware of how painful it was for you??

What possessed him to give me that name? It was the name of his family favorite — who hated it, too! She could have told him –maybe did– he surely must have been aware of how she got teased. But his mind was set on honoring her in that way.

The name wasn’t so rare, even, but part of the problem was it rhymed so well with some other words. Kids at school would call me by the rhymer instead of the name. I got a lot of verbal abuse at home, too, so couldn’t handle the excess at school.

The problem was compounded because when my Uncle heard what my Dad was naming me, he said, “Well, you should call her Aggie then, too.” Aggie–though an okay name–was used by the family as a very derogatory term for my mother (her middle name). For them it was a synonym for “slob.” (Mom suffered horrific abuse as a child.) So I dreaded telling people my second name, too.

It does surprise me that I can tell some people how much pain I endured… then they beg to know the name… then they tease me about it, too. In all fairness not everybody does, but as I said, the info gets passed around to people’s kids and kids just are cruel.

Loved this. We have seven children and decided early on to give each of our kids a family name and a biblical name. We never knew the sex of any of them before hand, but this last one (who had to be delivered by c-section rather than the planned homebirth) was tricky. We had three names for each sex and a couple of middle names, but when he showed up we couldn’t agree. My husband liked one, I liked another so we just called him ‘Bean’ (his ‘belly’ name) for couple days while we went back to the drawing board. Came up with name we both loved from our list of previous rejects. Go figure. Good luck🙂